Travel tips and cultural insights for your next visit to Switzerland with kids

Shop at home first: Camping Supplies

As the sunsets later and the days slowly get warmer, our upcoming trip with a pop-up camper van will be here before we know it! We are so excited to be renting a camper van. For us it’s a simpler way of traveling with the kids and we love the idea of taking off on a weekend to an unknown place and exploring, without needing to find a hotel. If things go well we may make getting our own camper van a priority for the coming year.

But with a new camping hobby comes a list of supplies that will be needed. If I am honest, I am a little nervous about the amount of things I may need to purchase for this new hobby of ours and have been busily preparing a list of the essentials that we will need for the camper van. If we’re to be able to spontaneously jump in our new van and enjoy a relaxed weekend away when it takes our fancy, we’ll need to have a box of supplies ready to go in our cellar so that there’s not a lot of stress and fuss in the run up to the weekend away.

What to do?

I thought of going to IKEA for a bunch of new and cheap stuff. But stopped myself when I consider the added expense (no matter how cheap) and the pull on my conscience of being a throw away consumer.

And then I came up with it...

I have decided to go shopping in my own home first.

First stop was the kitchen. I took a box and started to go through each cupboard.

For months I have wanted to further reduce the clutter in our kitchen. But I have an environmental conscience and really have issues with tossing stuff in the dumpster where it will eventually go into a landfill, especially items I will eventually need to replace. Additionally I don’t want to have to one day repurchase something that I have thrown out in order to save space. Now I can actually de-clutter and “shop” at the same time! Here’s what I did.

I saw that we had 9 different plates for little Z to use, these had been saved from the older kids and are in perfect condition still. But 9, who needs that many? We decided to keep 3 and the rest have gone into the camping box - light weight and easy to clean. If we have guests in the future where we need those plates, we can pop down into the cellar and use them.

We have 2 spatulas. 1 in case the other is in the dishwasher. I have always been hesitant to get rid of the second one. However as it will be down in the cellar in the box, if I really need the second one (or the first one would break for some reason) we can quickly and easy get to it.

We also added to the box metal cups in a bag; 2 small knives, 1 Swiss army knife (we had 5) and 2 saucepans that were doubles.

Next up I will hit the kids rooms, finding I am sure a small bag of toys and board games to add to our box.

By shopping at home, I am decluttering and make our home a more calm place, I am saving money and I am saving the environment.